milosevic
...vic is the only one to blame for all of this suffering, one may think that the Western Powers have played a big role in causing this conflict. Slobodan Milosevic, who used to be a president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, is now continuing his defense in the International War Crime Tribunal in Hague. He is facing charges of genocide in the Bosnia war and also crimes against humanity in the Croatia and Kosovo conflicts. The International War Crime is charging him with a total of sixty six counts of war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. If convicted of any charges he could be sentenced to life imprisonment. Charges that Milosevic helped the former leader of the Bosnian Serbs to prosecute Muslims and Croats in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war are denied by Mr. Milosevic. In addition, Mr. Milosevic is accusing the Western Government of provoking war in this region. “There are some people who still haven’t realize the truth today, that the war on territory of former Yugoslavia is the result of the will and the interest of others- the great Western powers,” Milosevic said. Even though I personally do not like Mr. Milosevic and his political goals, I have to say that he may be right when he is trying to accuse Western powers for the war in Yugoslavia. Right before the war started, Yugoslavia had relatively good standards of living. The economy was expanding dramatically from 1980’s until 1990’s in any way. It looked like the door to the European Community was widely open to us. Despite of its progress, instead of entering the world of democracy we entered through the door of hell. Some people may argue that in order to understand the war in Yugoslavia, you need to go back to the1990’s. However, to really understand what happened in Yugoslavia we need to go back as far as 500 to 600 hundred years ago when Serbian troops tried to defend their land, and the rest of Europe from Ottoman Turks invasion. Even though, Serbian troops fought with all of their pride, hearts and courage, they were defeated from a much stronger enemy. Serbia and the whole Balkan region have been conquered by the Ottoman Turks for the next five centuries. During Ottoman Turks regime Serbs from Serbia, and especially Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina were being forced to convert to Islam through high taxes, raping of their wives, and taking little babies away and sending them to Turkey. Also, during WW II the Croatians together with the Germans from 1940-1945 have tortured and killed more than one million Serbs and Gypsies in concentration camps all over Croatia.( Slovenia and Croatia were allies with Germany during WW II.) Farther on with creation of Yugoslavia in 1945, right after WW II with President Tito in power, Yugoslavia was facing Ethnic Nationalism. This Ethnic Nationalism was supported by different organized ethnic groups of people (Croats, Muslims, Kosovo Albanians…) whose main task was to destroy Yugoslavia and create their independent country. As a result of President’s Tito’s leadership skills and his ability to keep us safe from those groups, all Serbs-Christians Orthodox, Croats-Christian Catholics and Muslims enjoyed life in our beautiful, safe and relatively rich country. After President Tito died in 1980, and with the decline of communism, Ethnic Nationalism had risen. A lot of people were afraid of what would happen after his death. Being aware of this and their past, in 1990’s the Serbs were choosing a new leader for the Republic of Serbia. Slobodan Milosevic was the one who promised them that this will never happened again, and that he is going to protect them. After his election a media war started against Serbians and in particular against Milosevic. His nationally oriented politics put him in today’s position where he is accused of contributing to mass genocide in the Bosnian war and also in the wars in Croatia and Kosovo. As a result of this Serbs in general were miss-judged and generalized. They were blamed as the ones who started and organized these wars. Simultaneously, Croatians continu...